


Letters are not Curses, and Neither are Friendships

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen, the amount of suicide ideation that's unavoidable from niki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9645704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: What does a letter have in common with a fairy godmother? Niki doesn't particularly want either, and Elmer seems to think otherwise.Written as a response to the prompt "Whatever it is, I didn’t do it" + Niki & Elmer.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Listen... I don't know what this plot is. Hear me out. I don't know.

A letter is not a curse, generally. 

A letter may hold many wonderful things: confessions of love, invitations, fond regards. A letter is not a curse, not by nature, but Niki has never had any misconceptions about who she is; too empty to be loved, too invisible to be privy to an invitation, too wretched to be regarded fondly. She wakes that morning to see a letter laid neatly on her pillow, and to her it may as well be a severed head — just as unwanted, just as unexpected, just as foreboding.

It is a warning. It is a curse. She knows intrinsically. 

She cannot read the words — _word_? The handwriting sprawls so indelicately that she doubts she could distinguish even if she were literate. To her it is some indecipherable code, but this doesn’t matter. She lets herself imagine what it might say, and her imagination stretches only so far: _die, die, die_ , she imagines the message —

And when she does, she decides it does not scare her. 

She draws in a slow, steady breath, and tucks it away, in the sleeve of her nightgown and the back of her mind. _I’m cursed_ , she thinks, calmly, with resignation. This is not news. 

Then she finds the same message on her bedside table. 

Then she finds the same message on the mirror. 

Then she finds the same message folded into her dress. 

 _I’m cursed_ , she thinks, less calmly, with urgency. 

She counts them as she stumbles upon them: a dozen notes left for a woman who cannot read. The realisation creeps in slowly, then settles like a rock in the pit of her stomach. They can’t possibly be meant for her. Whoever left these wants the whole households to find them, and that — _that_  scares her. 

A threat to herself would be nothing. It would be welcome, even; she would not argue if some unknown threat decided to take her life now, content as she is. A threat to the workshop, though? A threat to Begg, and Czes, and Fermet? A threat to this life they have built and so graciously welcomed her into? She sees the unknowable letters shift before her eyes: _die, die, die_  becomes _say goodbye to Czeslaw_  becomes _say goodbye to Fermet_  becomes _say goodbye to this world_. Perhaps it was never meant to last. She feels her heart twist with the possibility, that her misfortune might affect these people — good people, living people. 

 _A curse_ , she thinks, and the thought sets her running downstairs. 

— Where she finds an uneventful morning. Alchemists preparing their work desks, the smell of breakfast down the hall, Czeslaw and Fermet sat at one corner of the room playing cards; the world is as it should be, and there she is, bearing the full weight of the anomaly on her own. She thumbs through the notes, as though if she looks over them again and again some yet undiscovered part of her might switch on and grant her comprehension. It does not.

“You’re late to rise today, Niki.”

Fermet holds his hand out across the table, offering a pick of cards to Czeslaw. The boy purses his lips in thought, and, seeing the two of them so carefree, Niki furrows her brow.

“I’m sorry. I hope it didn’t cause any trouble.”

As she speaks, Czeslaw pulls out a card. His expression contorts into a childish pout, and he draws back in his seat, arms folded over his chest. 

“You shouldn’t make it so obvious when you don’t get the one you want, Czes,” Fermet chides, jest in his voice, then without turning his head, answers: “— Oh, no, Niki, it’s been no trouble at all. I just thought it was unlike you. Is everything okay?”

 _No, you’re in danger_ , she thinks. 

“I don’t know,” she says.

“You don’t know?”

She sighs. How tiring it is to always _not know_. If only she could be certain on her own, then she wouldn’t have to worry them about it — but she can’t be. She presents the letters, frown drawn a little deeper. “I think it might be a threat.”

Fermet lowers his cards, splaying them face down across the table. Grin diminishing into a look of concern, he repeats: “A threat? My goodness — here, let me see.”

She obliges, setting the papers on the table in front of him and letting the burden slip from her hands with them. He seems to study them for a long moment, then —

“What do they say?”

He begins to laugh.

“It’s certainly a very _unique_ threat.”

When he reads them to her, she thinks _I’m cursed_ , calmly, with resignation — and fondness. 

* * *

The market place bustles with hagglers and merchants, underhanded dealings and friendly conversation, bad jokes and hearty laughter. 

“Have you heard the one about the…”

“About the  _what_? If you insist on telling me these jokes, can you at least do it without getting distracted?” 

Smiling man squints through the crowd, then turns to his friend and shakes his head. 

“I’ll tell you later,” he says, eyes somewhere else as he takes a slow step back.

“I urge you not to.”

He will, almost certainly — but for now he turns on his heel. 

“Anyway, I have to run now.”

Sullen man raises an eyebrow in question. 

“Where to?”

“Nowhere. I just have to run. See you!”

He throws his arm up high in the air to wave goodbye, then, in a puzzling contradiction, makes to duck out of sight.

* * *

Niki pushes her way through the crowded street, head held unusually high as she scans over the faces for one in particular. Blond hair, blue eyes, bright smile — she catches sight of it, like a ray of light in a sea of grey. Their gazes meet, for a moment, and she quickens her steps. He does, too.

He does, too — in the opposite direction, as though she was aiming a gun at his head. 

Her breaths are already shallower by the time she brings her feet to a halt, corset constricting her chest too tightly for running after him to be any option at all. 

“… So _that’s_ why.”

She had been so focused on finding Elmer, she hadn’t noticed who had been standing beside him, until she turns to find Huey shaking his head. She returns his wry smile with a frown. 

“Is he really going to make me chase after him?”

He shrugs, a shrug which is more a _probably_  than a _maybe_. 

“I don’t claim to understand that idiot.”

“Right, sorry.”

They’re silent for a long moment, then Huey raises his voice, almost in question. 

“I could go get him, if you want.” He does not sound convinced that _either_  of them want this. 

She furls her skirts up in her hands. 

“No, that’s fine.”

— And decides she must run anyway. 

Being friends with Elmer is, at times, a curse.

* * *

“Sorry, I can only open the door if you’ll smile. Are you gonna smile?”

“Are _you_  going to tell the truth?”

She feels ridiculous, standing around talking to a closed door. She imprints the image of Elmer’s grinning face onto it, and feels even more ridiculous. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

“Who _else_  would do this?”

She heaves a sigh and kneels to shove a small stack of papers in through the crack. When she rises she could swear she hears Elmer stifle a laugh, which is damning evidence in itself; he laughs _most_  at his own jokes.

“Someone wrote these for you? Wow! Maybe it was your guardian angel, or your fairy godmother! Look, this one says ‘ _don’t ask questions, just smile!_ ’. That’s great advice. You should follow it.”

 _A guardian angel? A fairy godmother?_  If she had such things, they would have stepped in to change the course of her life _years_ ago. Lousy fairy godmother to let the world break her. She almost _snorts_ , but she doesn’t; her expression remains stoic as ever. 

“Why can’t you admit it was just you?”

“Because it wasn’t.”

“Fine.”

“You don’t sound too happy.” 

She wraps her arms around herself, listening to his unaffected observation. In truth, she doubts she ever _sounds_  happy — but in this case he reads her monotone correctly. 

“Why would I be happy to be lied to?” 

“I don’t think you’d be happy if I told the truth, either.”

“What makes you say that?”

There’s a drumming against the door, idle fingers meeting sturdy wood. His voice does not change in any noticeable way when he answers, chipper and, as ever, lacking something fundamental. 

“You don’t want it to be ‘just Elmer’, really. There’s nothing special about that. That’s not going to make you smile.” 

This is true, in a sense: she doesn’t want it to have been Elmer who left the notes, because doesn’t particularly want it to have been _anyone —_ but that’s not the point. She shakes her head.

“Maybe it’d be nice if fairy godmothers were real.” _Maybe_. She isn’t sure. Would a fairy godmother be able to give her a place to die? She doesn’t let herself wonder for long. “But they’re not, Elmer, and you _are_. I’m still grateful for you.”

The door cracks open by an inch. 

“You really mean that?” The door springs open by much more than an inch. “Alright, alright, it was me!”

Elmer grins, arms held out to his sides as though awaiting a cheer. Niki does not provide one. 

“… Elmer.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. You said you’re grateful for me, right? Here I am! Why aren’t you smiling?”

Her frown tightens. Had he goaded her into saying that just to use it against her? It’s always impossible to tell how much of Elmer is cunning and how much is dumb luck.

“Just because I’m grateful doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed.” 

“Don’t be annoyed! Laugh!”

He chuckles, as though to demonstrate. Niki’s brow creases.

“Did you sneak into my room to write those?”

He continues to chuckle, and she continues not to join in. 

“Nope! I asked Czes to put them there for me. He’s a good kid.”

“You shouldn’t bring Czes into your schemes, Elmer.” She shakes her head, though she chooses not to dwell on it. If it had made the boy do anything but smile, Elmer wouldn’t have let him help in the first place. 

“Besides, you know that I can’t _read_. What was the point of leaving them to begin with?”

 _This_  is the crux of the issue. It feels somehow mocking, leaving such notes _knowing_  that she wouldn’t be able to decipher them; she narrows her eyes at Elmer, and his laughter stops. 

“Ah…”

“What?”

He rubs the back of his neck, a sheepish smile spreading across his face.

“Huh, I completely forgot about that. You can’t read! That was dumb of me.”

He’d _forgotten_. 

She can’t remain annoyed, hearing this; bemusement is an overwhelming presence. 

“Elmer,” she sighs. 

“Oh well! I’ve learned my lesson,” he assures. 

“You haven’t, have you.”

“I haven’t. Could you maybe smile anyway?”

 And she does, thinly, faintly. 

“You know, Elmer, between you and Czes, I think you might be the more childish one.”


End file.
